


Flowering like the stars, and measureless as a kiss.

by Hodgy



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Professional Wrestling
Genre: Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Minor Ibushi Kota/Kenny Omega, One-Sided Adam Page/Kenny Omega, Unrequited Love, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26191978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hodgy/pseuds/Hodgy
Summary: Adam knows. He knows they aren’t for him - the flowers.They are delicate, and velveteen and blush pink like Tokyo in February.(hanahaki disease au.)
Relationships: Ibushi Kota/Kenny Omega, Kenny Omega/Adam Page
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52





	Flowering like the stars, and measureless as a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> please heed the warnings in the tags.
> 
> if you haven't heard of hanahaki disease before, it's a fictional disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love.
> 
> with that in mind, enjoy.
> 
> also, i'd recommend listening to flowers in december by mazzy star while reading. it's sad and a little country western and it just _fits._

It began with a petal.

The first day of spring.

One perfect pink thumb-print on his pillow. 

After a few weeks, it’s two. A month, three.

After six it’s a full blossom, and they’ve started appearing during the day as well as the night.

By then, Adam’s coughing them up between matches, in the locker rooms, into his hand or his gym towel or the closest waste-paper basket.

After half a year, he can’t hide it so easily.

He hacks them up, spits out half a dozen at a time, squeezes his eyes shut and digs crescent-moons into his thighs with his nails to stop himself from making a sound.

  
  


*

  
  


Kenny smiles, flashes his teeth and brushes a curl out of his eyes; leans into Adam and tells the cameras that " _We’re excited to work together. We’re best friends."_

Adam knows. He knows they aren’t for him - the flowers. 

They are delicate, and velveteen and blush-pink like Tokyo in February.

Adam smiles too, and takes a sip of his whiskey, ignores the way it slides down his throat like liquid fire; catches on the spots where razor-edged leaves have wedged, where twigs and buds have stripped his throat raw.

Adam knows they’re not for him. He does. 

  
  


*

  
  


Adam dreams of _pink_.

The bright magenta tulips his father used to plant in the yard, the gentle rose-quartz earrings he bought his mother for Christmas the year he’d turned sixteen, the first warm hint of a multi-coloured Virginia sunset in Winter. 

When he wakes he’s greeted by a coughing fit and a spatter of blood to his waiting palm. 

The taste of dirt and plasma and bile on his tongue.

Is he to die?

Will his life end in tragedy?

Juliet at Romeo’s alter?

Narccissus’ Echo? Body withered to dust, whispering _‘Farewell, dear boy. Beloved in vain'_ with his last breath?

He’s _pathetic_.

A drunk, a loser, a nobody. Not good enough for his friends, not good enough for the elite, not good enough for Kenny.

So Adam tries; to forget, to numb the pain, to ease the unbearable ache in his chest.

He drinks, and he drinks, and it doesn’t help in the slightest, but Adam is out of time, out of options, and Kenny is never going to love him back.

The least he can do for himself is to make his journey into the ground go a little easier. 

*

Adam finds Kenny alone in his dressing room, eyes rimmed red and fingers at his temples, knees drawn to his chest.

The TV is on.

Ibushi and Tanahashi have been crowned tag champions six thousand miles away.

Adam lets the door drift shut, and later he retches on nothing for what feels like an hour. 

No blossoms this time. Not even bile.

  
  
  


*

A phone call is interrupted.

_“Yeah, sorry, man, we’ve gotta go.”_

Matt and Nick, shuffling at the other end of the phone, a long silent pause.

_“Can’t talk right now, Kenny’s not doing so great.”_

The click of the receiver, the repetitive _beep beep beep_ of his dial tone.

Adam strips his kitchen cupboards bare of alcohol and sits on his porch until he can’t see straight. Until the evergreens are lined with _pink_ and gold and the cicada’s start to chirp.

  
  


*

  
  


The levy breaks and petals spill out into Adam’s bathtub. 

Stems steeped in red, anthers separating into the dregs of water pooling in the ceramic, full clusters of flowers crushed crimson where they’ve ripped through Adam’s esophagus. 

They’re not pink anymore. 

Instead, they’re brown and barely opaque at the edges; rotting, withered and dying.

Adam grieves for them; picks what he can up in his open hands, stares them down until there’s another tickle at the back of his throat, another heave, another expulsion of blood and stomach acid and plant-matter. 

  
  


*

  
  
  


Adam’s chest is mottled plum and sunflower yellow, swollen at his ribs and painful to the touch.

Roots are weaving and twisting and crushing the air from his lungs. 

A cherry-blossom tree blooming in his trachea. 

Kenny asks him what’s wrong; if he’s seen a doctor. 

He’s in good spirits, patting each guy he passes on the back, telling them all to have a good show. That he’ll be cheering them on from backstage.

Adam can tell by the look in Kenny’s eyes that he’s crumbling inside - he’s doing a good job of hiding it though.

If Adam didn’t know Kenny like the back of his hand he might not have seen it.

But he _does._

Adam almost smiles at the irony of it all.

_“Nothing_ ,” Adam breathes, _“Nothing’s wrong_.”

Kenny presses a hand to Adam’s chest and Adam can feel his heartbeat through his palm, through the veins and capillaries that sit beneath the skin at his fingertips.

It flows through him, like a conduit; keeps his heart beating. Eases the pain, just a little.

For this moment, this one moment, they are together. 

This moment is all Adam needs. This moment is enough.

Kenny’s hand drops, and the touch means nothing to him.

Adam _knows._

If only Kenny knew how that same touch means _everything_ to Adam,

it’s the reason he puts his whiskey down and comes to work on time,

the reason he turns and looks over at their corner for approval when he’s pulled off a difficult maneuver,

the reason he combs his hair back and agonizes for hours about which shirt he should wear,

the reason he get’s up in the morning,

the reason he’s dying slowly,

choking on blood-soaked blooms,

pulling petals from between his teeth,

all at once. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from pablo neruda's "amor"
> 
> thank you for reading.
> 
> twitter: @boutmachines

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Last Call](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28924593) by [DiveIn_HeadFirst_CantLose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiveIn_HeadFirst_CantLose/pseuds/DiveIn_HeadFirst_CantLose)
  * [Forget Me Not](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28933203) by [Tgaret990](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tgaret990/pseuds/Tgaret990)




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